Trump is not looking for judges. He is looking for collaborators.
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on two more nominees who show exactly what that means: Benjamin Flowers and Matthew Schwartz, two nominees whose records make clear they should never be trusted with lifetime power over our rights, our freedoms, or our democracy.
Flowers, nominated to the Sixth Circuit, has told us exactly what kind of judge he would be. In his own words, “timid textualism” will not “Make America Great Again.”
Federal judges are supposed to decide cases based on the law and the Constitution, not allegiance to a president or a political movement. Flowers linked his approach to judging directly to Trump’s MAGA movement, making clear that his vision for the courts is not impartial justice, but ideological victory.
And Flowers’ record gets even worse.
He has opposed the rights of transgender students, defended bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, rejected birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants, and urged the Supreme Court to weaken a landmark voting rights precedent that helped protect communities of color from discriminatory redistricting for decades.
At a moment when Trump is already attacking the courts and testing the limits of executive power, Flowers has also argued that “in the age of Trump,” a president may disregard certain parts of judicial decisions he disagrees with.
Putting someone with that view on the bench would be extraordinarily dangerous for our country.
Schwartz, nominated to the Second Circuit, shows the danger just as clearly: Trump is trying to put another one of his own personal attorneys on one of the most powerful appeals courts in the country.
Since 2025, Schwartz has represented Trump, members of his family, and parts of the Trump Organization as they appealed a court finding that they fraudulently inflated the value of Trump’s assets. He also represented Trump in the hush money case involving Stormy Daniels, arguing that Trump’s private conduct should be shielded by the Supreme Court’s sweeping presidential immunity decision.
Now Trump wants to reward that service with a lifetime seat on the Second Circuit.
Schwartz’s record shows the same pattern again and again: side with the powerful, fight accountability, and stand in the way of people seeking justice. He fought homeowners seeking accountability for racial discrimination in lending. And as a college student, he attacked legal equality for same-sex couples and condemned the use of a university chapel for a same-sex religious ceremony.
This is the pattern of Trump’s judicial nominees: loyalty to Trump, hostility to civil rights, deference to the powerful, and contempt for the people most at risk when the courts fail to uphold the law.
The broader context could not be more dangerous. Trump has already told us what he wants from the courts: loyalty. He has attacked judges who rule against him, praised the idea that justices should be loyal to the person who appointed them, and nominated people whose records show they are willing to advance his agenda.
Once confirmed, federal judges can serve for decades, with the power to weaken civil rights, undermine voting rights, shield abuses of power, and turn the courts into another weapon for Trumpism.
The Senate has a responsibility to stop him.
Trump’s nominees cannot be treated as business as usual. Not when he is openly demanding loyalty. Not when his administration has defied the courts. And not when the nominees before the Senate show such alarming records of extremism, hostility to equal justice, and loyalty to Trump’s agenda.
The Senate must not reward Trump’s loyalists with lifetime power.
Sign our petition now: tell the Senate to reject Trump’s judicial nominees.
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